Friday, June 14, 2013

Duke Surgeons Implant Synthetic Human Vein

My opinion: This successful surgery is a massive milestone in the medical field. Without it, I'm not entirely sure that it will be possible to replace organs by using stem cells. For example, how will these organs be connected to the already existing veins in the body? Maybe bioengineered veins can fill in the gap. Furthermore, if one organ is not receiving enough nutrients, doctors could insert a vein to support the organ. The only worry that I have is that this would take up too much space or take nutrients away from other organs. But perhaps most importantly, if someone has a history of severe history or bleeding in certain veins, then these may be replaced. I could see this preventing many strokes (especially reoccurring ones), among other problems! This is an exciting invention any way you look at it, and I think it represents how far we're at in the surgical industry. My big question is, what's next after this? Feel free to comment.

Surgeons at Duke University Hospital implant bioengineered vein

Dr. Jeffrey Lawson, left, and Dr. Shawn Gage perform the implant
surgery while Dr. Laura Niklason watches. Niklason is founder and chief
technical officer for Humacyte. Credit: Shawn Rocco, Duke Medicine
(Medical Xpress)—In a first-of-its-kind operation
in the United States, a team of doctors at Duke University Hospital
helped create a bioengineered blood vessel and implanted it into the arm
of a patient with end-stage kidney disease.

The procedure, the first U.S. clinical trial to
test the safety and effectiveness of the bioengineered blood vessel, is a
milestone in the field of tissue engineering. The new vein is an
off-the-shelf, human cell-based product with no biological properties
that would cause organ rejection.
Using technology developed at Duke and at a spin-off company it
started called Humacyte, the vein is engineered by cultivating donated human cells on a tubular scaffold to form a vessel. The vessel is then cleansed of the qualities that might trigger an immune response. In pre-clinical tests, the veins have performed better than other synthetic and animal-based implants.